Top 250 Challenge: 212

La Belle Et La Bete(1946)
Number 166 on IMDb's Top 250

"Once upon a time..." A half-ruined merchant lives in the country with his son Ludovic and his three daughters. Two of the daughters, Felicie and Adelaide, are real shrews, selfish, pretentious, evil (kind of Cinderella evil step-sisterish). They exploit the third daughter, Belle, as a servant. One day, the merchant gets lost in the forest and enters a strange castle. He picks up a rose for Belle, which makes the castle's owner appear. He is a monster, half-human (body) and half-beast (paws, head), and he has magic powers. He sentences the merchant to death, unless one of his daughters replaces him. Beauty sacrifices herself for her father and goes to the castle. Hilarity ensues. She will soon discover that the Beast is not so wild and inhuman after all.

Trivia: Philip Glass composed an opera perfectly synchronized to the film. The original soundtrack was eliminated, and he composed the opera to be performed along with the film projected behind the orchestra and voice talent. The Opera is included on the Criterion Collection DVD as an alternate track (I listened to a little of it, but not the whole thing). It took five hours for Jean Marais to put on his make-up as the Beast. The stream that the Beast tries to drink from when he is weak and dying is actually a sewage runoff behind the studio.

Well, I didn't realize how close the Disney version was to the story, except that they Disneyfied it by making the creepy servants (arms sticking out of walls, statutes that watch you, doors that open by themselves and talk, mirrors that talk, beds that make themselves) cute and lovable. As a fairy tale on film, this is a good adaptation, the castle did seem supernatural, but the ending was a little confusing. Read below if you want to see why.

Warning: Spoilerific Content Follows:

The Beast gives Belle a key to his treasure, which is eventually stolen (the key, not the treasure) by the guy who asked her to marry him, Avenant. Avenant goes to the castle to steal the treasure but instead of using the key, (he thinks the door may be booby trapped) he breaks in, meanwhile, back at the sewage runoff...*cough* stream, Belle has found the Beast dying because she didn't come back in time and his heart was broken (I'm guessing on the heart part) and she pleads with him to get better, but he says it is too late. Back to the treasure room, Avenant gets shot in the back by a statue guarding the treasure and as he is dying, he turns into the Beast. The Beast is looking pretty bad and Belle thinks he is a goner, but all of a sudden he leaps up and is a prince, But here is the weird part, he could be Avenant's twin (they were played be the same actor). He said the one way to save him was to get a loving look from a girl. Belle is kind of suspicious at first and mentions that it is strange that he kind of looks like a guy she once knew but quickly dismisses it and they fly off to his real castle for much whoopee making (I am guessing on that, too). A guy she once knew? He lived with her family! He had asked her repeatedly to marry him! She had just spent a full week around him! I mean, really, was she just trying to...Nope I have no idea what she was thinking, at this point she doesn't know that the real Avenant is dead, what was she going to say when she showed up at the house to let the Beast meet her dad? "Hey, Avenant, I decided to marry you, only not you really. Cheers!" Kind of creepy if you ask me.